Seems to me this guy has it all backwards. He might have his facts right about early lens quality v Zeiss v nikkor. But he’s conclusions and assumptions are all wrong. Firstly his definition of “Leica Photography” seems to be stuck in the 1920′s, he actually doesn’t even define his definition of “Leica photography” but one can assume from his text, and the way he talks about HCB that he’s definition of “Leica photography” is closely tied to the pictorial movement and “the decisive moment”.

“Leica Photography” is a living organism it evolves, “Leica Photography” of the 1920-30′s is very different to “Leica Photography”of the Korean/Viet Nam war era. During the pictorial movement photographers, tried to make art that was pictorial/painterly (which was why bromoil was popular at this time), this is why grain and soft focus was popular not because lenses were crap. “Leica Photography” has always been about creating art, fast forward to this decade and the Leica M is no different it’s not about shooting test charts and getting the highest DxO rating. It’s about creating art and if that means using silverFx to add grain to a razor sharp digital file then that’s good too.

Leica became marginalized during the rise of the SLR in the 70-80′s and then to make things worse the dSLR revolution of the late 90′s and 2000′s pushed Leica further back. It has nothing to do with the Leitz family, quite the opposite, they let Leica slip on their watch they just kept phoning it in, allowing the company to become a dinosaur. Then the Millionaire guy bought Leica, he wasn’t just some soulless venture capitalist he IS a photography enthusiast (check out his interview on youtube). He loved his Leica camera and wanted to make Leica great again. He succeeded!

Not only is “Leica Photography” NOT dead, it’s more alive today than it has been in decades!

Actually come to think about it, the fact this guy has a blog dedicated to Leica photography, proved Leica Photography is not dead.